Page 153 of The Unlikely Spare

Someone tackles me from the side, the branch flying from my hands as we hit the platform hard. The impact drives all the air from my lungs, leaving me gasping.

Stones bite into my palms and blood fills my mouth from where I’ve bitten my tongue. But all I can see is Eoin.

Through the chaos, Eoin’s fighting to get to me, but they bring him down with brutal efficiency. The sound he makes when they wrench his shoulder?—

“Get off him!” The words tear from my throat as I thrash against my captors. “Don’t you fucking touch him!”

I hardly notice what they’re doing to me, my hands being wrenched behind my back. I’m too focused on what’s happening to Eoin.

They’re binding Eoin’s hands now, and one of them kicks him when he tries to rise. He falls back to the ground with a thud. Something breaks in me. Red floods my vision, pure incandescent rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt.

“If you hurt a single hair on his head, I will hunt you down to the ends of this earth and make sure you suffer.” I’ve never heard my voice like this. It comes from somewhere deeper than my chest, deeper than training or breeding. It’s violent and hard, stripped of all polish and pretense, raw as an exposed nerve. Unflinching and unyielding. This is what exists under the prince act—something primal and dangerous that would burn down kingdoms for the people I love. “And I will hunt you into the afterlife as well. Understood?”

A few of the men actually pause. The one who kicked Eoin takes a step back from him. When I glance up at Pierce, his eyes are narrow, studying me with new interest.

“Well, how unexpectedly fascinating,” Pierce says. “The pampered prince reveals his claws.”

I meet his gaze steadily, channeling every ounce of royal hauteur I possess. My knees are screaming from kneeling on the forest floor, sticks digging into my flesh, but I don’t let it show.

“You haven’t the faintest fucking idea what I’ll do to you if you hurt him. I will learn your names. Your faces. Where yousleep.” My voice drops even lower. “And I will dedicate every moment I have left on this planet to making you regret this day. Your names will become cautionary tales whispered in the dark.” My eyes find the one who kicked him. “Starting with you.”

Pierce’s smile shifts. “You’d actually follow through, wouldn’t you? All that pretty threatening.”

“I assure you, testing me would be inadvisable.” The words come out flat.

Pierce smiles like I’m amusing. But there’s something calculating in his expression now, a reassessment of variables in whatever equation he’s running.

I keep my eyes on him even as I track Eoin in my peripheral vision. He’s conscious, breathing steadily despite the blood trickling from his temple. His fingers flex against his restraints—still fighting, still searching for an advantage. But he’s also watching me with an expression I can’t quite read.

Pierce’s men seem to be treating Eoin more gently now, though whether from genuine caution or simply to avoid more theatrical vows of eternal vengeance, I can’t tell.

They gag us and then drag us toward waiting vehicles, black SUVs with tinted windows idling on what must be a fire road. The engines purr with quiet menace.

I manage to bump against Eoin, just for a moment, his solid warmth against me. A brief contact that says everything I can’t voice through the gag.

Together. Even now, even captured, even facing whatever Pierce has planned.

Together.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Eoin

The back of the van smells like old motor oil and rust.

My shoulders burn from having my arms wrenched behind me and my wrists bound. The gag in my mouth tastes of dirty cotton and defeat.

Nicholas sits across from me, his ridiculously bleached hair catching what little light filters through the van’s reinforced windows as we bounce over what feels like every pothole in New Zealand. Dirt is smudged across his cheekbones, and his T-shirt is torn at the shoulder, revealing a glimpse of pale skin.

Nicholas is fearless. Or maybe that’s incorrect. I’m sure he gets scared, but he’s also brave. He’s got the kind of courage that you can’t teach, that comes from somewhere innate.

The words he screamed at Pierce and his men echo in my head.If you hurt a hair on his head, I will hunt you down to the ends of this earth and make sure you suffer.

The van hits another rut, throwing us both sideways. Nicholas catches himself, then meets my eyes in the dim light. He gives an eye roll that clearly says, “Honestly, the service on this kidnapping is subpar.”

Christ. Even bound and gagged in the back of a terrorist’s van, he’s still the most maddeningly beautiful person I’ve ever met.

I’m so fucking in love with this man.